What does it mean to be "attracted” to someone? What does it mean to find a person desirable? With whom do we want to have sex and why? How do we know a person is beautiful? Are our attractions unchangeable and…
by Phillip B. Williams This past Monday, Ashley Fantz and Bill Kirkos wrote for CNN that leaders in Chicago are asking for calm as they await the release of video footage from a police dashcam showing an officer shooting Laquan…
This post originally appeared on Conversation X. by Viet N. Trinh Associate Master Erika Christakis, My mother was one of many thuyền nhân Việt Nam. English-speaking historians might call her a “boat person,” which is as good a translation from the original as…
By Ahmad Greene “By and by, when the morning comes When the saints of God are gathered home We'll tell the story how we've overcome For we'll understand it by and by” I come from a family of Black women survivors…
This past weekend, thousands of Facebook users deactivated their accounts in protest of what they feel are the social networking site’s failures to properly address issues of race and racism on the platform. The blackout was organized by Kinfolk Kollective’s La…
By Quentin Lucas A few years ago, I struggled through a date at an art museum, admiring, but mostly just trying to understand, the pieces comprising a feminist exhibit. The woman I was with, much more educated about the subject…
By Darnell L. Moore Art is a tool necessary for new world creating and self-remaking. When conjured in the imaginative expanse of the black creative mind, art has the capacity to transgress: Art can move us toward black queer futures…
By Hari Ziyad “When you walk through the door, what does one see?” I have always found this a fascinating question for multiple reasons: first, it assumes people are present in every room to “see” and that those people all…
by Amber Rambharose Almost any given object can be split in half with each half making up 50% of whole. I can only think of one exception. When someone asks if I am half black or half white, I don't…
Nate Marshall is from the South Side of Chicago. He is an editor of The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop. His first book, Wild Hundreds (University of Pittsburgh Press), won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize…
